Only the Good
by Angel Baby1
Summary: Wouldn't it be nice if, in the end, Happily Ever After is for everyone? And it can be, as witnessed by those who live to remember those who didn't. But Happily Ever After could never be enough for the good, who earned more. Character death, RHr DG


AN: Welcome to Angel Baby's version of a Harry Potter one-shot. Erm...yeah. I've done other stuff, but this is my first HP fic (that I've posted), sooo...yeah. Kinda vague. Kinda...supposed to be. Not at all fluffy. I like the way it turned out...hope you do, too. ...yeah... Okay! Off with you, g'wan, read!

Disclaimer: To put it succinctly: If it were mine, it would not be what it _is_, it would be what it _could have been._

On with the show.

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Ginny thought the reason she hadn't been crushed when Harry told her he didn't share her feelings was due mostly to wording. She wondered, at the time, why she hadn't broken down in miserable, heartbroken hysterics. The night of the confession, she asked Harry to stay with her as the last straggling Gryffindors made their way back to their dorms.

Harry, being the most gracious person she knew, smiled gently, sitting on a couch by the fireplace and waiting. (She could look back now and recognize his expression as fond resolve, could see, in twenty-twenty hindsight, that he had known what she would say.) That night, she could barely sit still in her sick nervousness. Her knees bounced restlessly, and she twisted the front of her robes in her fingers. She could feel the heat of her blush.

Then Harry had taken her hand and said gently, "Tell me, Ginny, so it's between us."

And she had blurted, in a manner devoid of any grace or dignity, "I'm in love with you!" Her face flamed. In the silence that followed, she managed in a mousy voice, "I have been since the day I first saw you, trying to get onto the platform. You were so...so calm and reasonable, and I know I wouldn't have been in your shoes. It got worse every year. You became more and more of a hero, and I loved you more and more. I tried to pretend that I didn't, last year, so maybe I could at least be your friend without it being weird, but it backfired. I got to be with you up close, and now it's worse than ever. I know you probably only see me as Ron's kid sister," she rushed, "but—" Brown eyes finally met green when she looked up in desperation, and the world stilled, shuttered. Shattered.

He was smiling at her, gentle and wise and achingly kind, his green eyes impossibly bright, like emeralds winking out of a face too knowledgeable for its years. Whatever training Dumbledore had initiated to prepare Harry for his fate, it had taken its toll. Only later would they all learn that Harry had stepped up his pre-set program, attempting what professionals professionally called "too much." Then, though, that night, she had only seen a man, a grown wizard, smiling at the love of a young girl, touched and fond of the gesture.

But she did not truly love him because she did not truly know him. No one did. No one could. He was the Boy Who Lived. He was Harry Potter.

Harry took Ginny's other hand, forcing them both to turn so that they faced each other dead on, knees brushing. The hair on Ginny's arms and the back of her neck stood up as a shock of power coursed through her at the simple touch. Not because she loved him, but because he had been training before she'd called to him and his power was still humming just beneath his skin.

"Ginny," he began, devastatingly benevolent, giving her hands a reassuring squeeze. "I know you care for me more than anyone else not related to you by blood. I know you would die for me, and die, in part, if I died. I know you love me. But you're not in love with me. You adore the image, and you might adore _me,_ but you know you're not in love with me. Think about your mother and father, and what they must feel. You know you don't feel that for me. And you know I cannot feel that. It isn't my place to feel that." He cupped her cheek, smile now sad beyond measure. "I cannot fall in love. You can and will, but not with me. Watch Ron and Hermione sometime, when they think no one's paying attention. That is your destiny, above and beyond the war, even as the war is by destiny, above and beyond that. We have our roles, Ginny. The game must play out." He kissed her forehead, a seal and a blessing. Then he was gone.

Ginny did not sleep that night, sitting on one of the couches in the common room staring at the fire as she thought.

One year later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione graduated Hogwarts.

Two years later, Ginny married the love of her life, her soulmate, Draco Malfoy.

Three years later, Ginny joined her husband at the grave of a nineteen-year-old hero.

"He saved me," Draco remarked softly to his wife, one arm curled protectively, comfortingly around her waist, hand resting on the swell of her stomach where their firstborn waited for life.

"He saved us all," Ginny agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. The funeral had only been a few weeks ago. Last month, she had walked in to find him plotting with Dumbledore, utterly serious other than the little redheaded toddler propped on his hip. Ron and Hermione's first daughter had loved nothing more than to be held by her uncle. She had been nearly inconsolable since the death. It seemed impossible that he was dead. Harry had burst with life and power until life and power burst from him at his own command to decimate the being known as Voldemort.

He was no longer a Boy Who Lived. Now they called him simply Harry Potter, a name spoken with as much whispered awe as the Four Founders or Merlin. Eventually, history classes would refer to him as Harry Potter the Unmatched, or, in children's rhymes, Potter the Peerless.

Those who knew him remembered him as Harry. Just Harry, a gangly boy barely grown into his knees and elbows when he died.

Ginny and Draco named their firstborn son Harry. He had red hair instead of black, silver eyes instead of green, and looked as though he would be broad of shoulder and tall. In short, he looked nothing like Harry and hadn't ever, would never. But this new little Harry dreamt sometimes of a slim whip of a young man, almost unfortunately short but radiating power that made his slight presence fill whatever area he currently inhabited. The man little Harry dreamed of had wild black hair and eyes like emeralds caught on fire, snapping with green lighting. Little Harry drew pictures of his dreams, sometimes, and the pictures always included several teenagers and young adults (by wizarding standards) that anyone who looked at the pictures instantly recognized.

James and Lily Potter. Sirius Black. Remus Lupin. Severus Snape. Percy Weasley, reformed and martyred for his family and cause. Heroes all, champions of the Light, taken from the world generations before their times. But whoever ended up in the increasingly detailed and beautiful pictures, whatever happened in whichever setting, one person was always there, laughing and playing and talking and loved.

Harry Potter.

"Taken from us before his time," Dumbledore had said at funeral after funeral as the best of his inner circle fell delivering their devastating blows, with or without his knowledge.

The deaths of James, Lily, and Sirius had been unexpected, a shock.

The loss of Severus, Remus, and Percy, expected but unavoidable, had left them raw and aching.

The sacrifice of Harry Potter, though possible, had come in such a way and with such speed that it had taken their breath. Dumbledore had not been able to say his infamous words at Harry's funeral, voice crippled beneath the weight of guilt and tears at this, their final and greatest wound.

So Hermione had stood in his place, her daughter weeping in her arms, and said clearly, almost bitterly, brokenheartedly, "Only the good die young."

Though only the Muggle-borns got the reference, all of the wizarding world understood her meaning. Harry now rested with his parents, his godfather, his closest adult confidant, the Potions Master spy responsible for the Victory of Hogwarts, and the Weasley responsible for the Resurrection of the Ministry of Magic. And they rested with him, the Savior of the Wizarding World. If little Harry's dreams and drawings meant anything, they had finally found happiness, together, in death.

Only the good.

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AN: That's all she wrote, ladies and gents. Please drop a line and let me know what you think. If I wrote a series, it wouldn't be connected with this one. But, if I wrote a series, would you read it?


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